Introduction
Twenty-four years ago, John Maxwell wrote a book called The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower Your Team (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001). In it, he shared “The Law of Mount Everest: As the challenge escalates, the need for teamwork elevates.” I believe that if he wrote the book this year, he would have modified The Law of Mount Everest to state that as challenge escalates, the need for teamwork and collaboration elevates.
Christopher Novak in his book, Conquering Adversity: Six Strategies to Move You and Your Team Through Tough Times (CornerStone Leadership Institute, 2004), writes that “Collaboration is about the people we take with us on our journey forward.”
Dan Cohen in his book, The Heart of Change Field Guide: Tools and Tactics for Leading Change in Your Organization (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), notes that in the process of stakeholder enrollment collaboration needs to happen before people will commit and advocate for change.
For me, the subject of collaboration and team work became a very big issue in the summer and fall of 2015. Everyone was talking about it and everyone one was asking questions about it. Recently, this subject has come roaring back on to my radar screen. People are once again interested in this subject and once again asking questions. All of this interest can be boiled down into one important and timely question: How can leaders increase effective teamwork and collaboration?
Three Distinctions
As we explore this subject, I think it is important to clarify three words, namely cooperation, teamwork, and collaboration. In particular, we need to understand that each word creates a different outcome. First, cooperation is an interpersonal interaction on the one to one level, and has the potential to create interpersonal synergy. In mathematical terms, one plus one has the potential to be greater than two.
Second, teamwork is focused on intra-team interactions. In basic terms, my part plus all of your parts has the potential to create something greater than the team, i.e. the generation of collective synergy and collective results which is always greater than individual results.
Third, collaboration is focused on inter-teams interactions. Again, in basic terms, my team engages with your team in order to create a level of holistic synergy. At this level, we are all focused on the success of the company as a whole, and the outcome is greater than individual cooperation or team work. However, we must keep in mind that cooperation, teamwork, and collaboration are all critical to short and long term success.
The Collaboration Continuum
When we focus on collaboration, we must recognize that it is a continuum more than a specific event or singular action. In the beginning, people are working in isolation. There is no need to communicate outside the group and those involved only share with others as needed.
Next, we see people engage in a level of consultation with other individuals and/or teams. They do this to gain perspective or understanding outside their group. Then, they take the parts that they like, and the parts that cause the least amount of disruption to their group. Still, in the end, they do what they want to do. For many, they believe that this is collaboration.
Now some will engage in coordination but call it collaboration. I think there is a big distinction between the two. When people coordinate, they work with others outside the group to get something done. It typically starts with the “I have a plan and you have a plan” mentality. Once we recognize this, they meet to share what each have planned. Then, they work together.
However, what I have witnessed that is unique about effective collaboration is that both teams start with a joint analysis which includes an agreement about what is the problem. Next, they continue with joint planning and execution of the plan. Furthermore, they discuss the compelling reason to collaborate, and there are agreed to guidelines to the process. Then, they expect there to be trial and adaptation periods, along with reliance on each other to collectively solve problems. Ideally, each group or team integrates the solutions into what they are doing on a daily basis, too.
Finally, there is one more stage past collaboration which is rarely experienced or talked about much, namely co-creation. This follows the same path as the aforementioned effective collaboration. But they do one more thing, that from my perspective is most unique about co-creation, namely they share resources based on a high degree of personal, strategic and organizational trust. It is the resource sharing that accelerates collaboration into co-creation, and often results in very creative solutions and outcomes.
A Shared Mindset
Recognizing the aforementioned continuum, we must realize that teamwork and collaboration begins with a shared mindset. All involved know why they need to do the work, and all involved understand what kind of problems or problems they are dealing with during teamwork and collaboration. They also know what to do and are capable of doing it. In essence, they understand the goal from an operational and strategic perspective.
At this point, I am reminded of some thing that James Belasco and Ralph Stayer wrote years ago in their book, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring To Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead (Time Warner, 1994). As they explain, "The primary purpose of strategic planning is not to strategically plan for the future, although that's an important purpose of the exercise. It is primarily to develop the strategic management mind-set in each and every individual in the organization. The purpose of the process is not only to produce a plan. It is to produce a plan that will be owned and understood by the people who have to execute it.” The critical elements within this quote are the shared strategic mindset and that the plan is owned and understood by the people who have to execute it.
Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen in their article, “The Secrets of Great Teamwork” from the June 2016 issue of the Harvard Business Review, write that “Distance and diversity, as well as digital communication and changing membership, make them [teams] especially prone to the problems of ‘us versus them’ thinking and incomplete information…. The solution to both is developing a shared mindset among team members - something team leaders can do by fostering a common identity and common understanding.” Again, a shared mindset is critical at the team level and in the collaboration process.
Haas and Mortensen then point out something very interesting about effective teamwork which is the necessary pre-cursor to effective collaboration. As they write, “In the past teams typically consisted of a stable set of fairly homogeneous members who worked face-to-face and tended to have a similar mindset. But that’s no longer the case, and teams now often perceive themselves not as one cohesive group but as several smaller subgroups. This is a natural human response: Our brains use cognitive shortcuts to make sense of our increasingly complicated world, and one way to deal with complexity of a 4-D team [diverse, geographically dispersed, digitally connected, and dynamic as in in frequent changes in membership] is to lump people into categories. But we also are inclined to view our own subgroup - whether it’s our function, our unit, our region, or our culture - more positively than others, and that habit often creates tension and hinders collaboration.”
The tendency to sub-divide into small groups may be normal and a cognitive coping mechanism, but in the world of teamwork and collaboration this creates major problems. Leaders have to understand this is normal, and at the exact same time, they need to work diligently on building and maintaining a shared mindset. Given we are dealing with 4-D teams more and more, and given we are wanting these teams to work better as teams, and to collaborate better with other teams, then we need to recognize that clarity about why we need to work well together, and what we needs to get done becomes mission critical to success. We also need leaders who know how to help people collaborate.
The Sum Of Multiple Behaviors
For many years, I have explained to senior executives, leaders and managers that collaboration is the sum of multiple behaviors. It is not a singular action but the outcome of multiple choices done well over time. For me, there are three core leadership behaviors that result in effective collaboration within a team or between teams.
The first core behavior relates to communication. When an individual or team is outside their comfort zone and struggling, we need to remember that the support of a team, a strategic perspective, and a safety zone for strategic dialogue makes a big difference. Yet, the tap root all three is the ability to create and maintain safety in communication. While this may seem simple, it is not easy because safety at this level honors both facts and feelings. When I have observed exceptional leadership that has resulted in good teamwork and good collaboration, I have noticed two elements to their communication. First, they are exceptional listeners. The second is that they are credible leaders, because they do what they say they will do. Again, this seems simple but it is not easy because to do both things well, you have to be consistent and disciplined over time
The second core behavior relates to problem solving. While most leaders focus on the solving of the problem, the best leaders focus on the word problem itself. They spend a great deal of time identifying the problems, defining the problems, and analyzing the causes of problems. This takes a great deal of time and energy, but when it does well, the execution of the solutions has greater buy-in and commitment.
The third core behavior relates to effective planning and execution. Most leaders who want better teamwork and collaboration focus on setting goals and making sure people are executing them. And while this is important, I have noticed that once the goals are set, they often do not take into account the rise of unknown variables or unpredictable issues that surface after the goal has been written. Thus, the execution of the goal by a team or a couple of teams working together becomes problematic over time.
Yet, in circumstances where the goal is written and then executed, a greater level of team work and collaboration will surface if there are weekly tactical meetings to check on the progress related to the goal, and when their are monthly strategic reviews where all involved analyze, debate, and decide if the goal is still the right goal as critical issues, unpredictable problems, or unknown variables surface post goal writing. If so, then all involved can adapt and work collaboratively to accommodate these factors.
Through better communication, problem solving, and planning and execution, leaders at all levels of the organization can generate effective outcomes and build capacity for future efforts. The key is to assist people at getting better at all three of these core leadership skills.
To be continued on Tuesday.
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